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War Stories

Squadron and the B-52 Crew - 1968

Garrett "Moose" Marcinkowski

How the 3/4 Cav Squadron supported a B-52 crew so they could see an Arc Light from the ground.

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Arc Lights were like living in an earthquake. Everything would shake rattle and roll, usually to many cheers from the various hootches. I remember one mission going in while the movie was being shown. The horizon was aglow and the noise deafening.

Somebody at higher echelons came up with bright idea of having a B-52 crew see what an Arc Light was like FROM THE GROUND. A normal mission for them was 8-10 hours and, according to a friend of mine who was a crew member, boring beyond belief (except for mid air refueling and the bomb run itself).

They never got any feedback for their work. So the idea was to put them in a ground unit closest to the impact area. That was one of the ground troops of the squadron that would only be two klicks from the strike. The crew arrived the night before in their new jungle fatigues (some say the inspection stickers were still on them). Squadron gave them a briefing and we briefed them on what was going to happen from our standpoint. The crew got a good nights sleep and the next afternoon we took them out to the ground troop in our slicks.

The troop was already laagered up in their night defensive positions when we dropped the crew off. To say they were nervous would be an understatement. Not only because they were in enemy territory but their contemporaries were about to drop tons of bombs in their vicinity.

The strike was due to go in at 0200 and the ground commander later told me the crew didn't get any sleep at all. They kept checking their watches and wondering if the navigator had done his job right or if the bombardier had put in the coordinates correctly.

The strike went in as scheduled and on target, much to the relief of the crew, and we came back at first light to show them what a BDA was like. They were like giddy schoolboys laughing an joking that they had survived the night and now were going to see what their friends had wrought.

The scout team was already out there and the slicks stayed out of their way but still close enough for them to get and idea of the damage, which was significant. Legend has it that a VC popped out of a spider hole in the middle of this destruction and tried to take a shot at the slick. The crew chief took care of him but the crew was stunned that anyone could live through the bombing run. We also pointed out that damage was significant to the VC/NVA with structures, food stores, ammunition stores and infrastructure destroyed.

So we all felt the visit by the B-52 crew was beneficial to them but just another day at the office for us. We were never invited to return the favor.